The Top 10 Worst Swedish Foods (or ones that are just plain weird)…

I recently read a Top 10 on this very subject, and while I realise that things like this are highly subjective I have to say that aside from two or three things, I didn’t agree with the list at all! Indeed, they even put some things on the list which I’d actually put on my “Top 10 Best Swedish Foods”, so I’ve no idea what was wrong with that author (to be fair, I think they “crowd-sourced” the responses, and then just picked the responses from the people who’d sent in the most decent photos).

In any event, I should add a disclaimer that these are purely my personal opinions and I don’t mean to offend any die-hard fans of any of the things on this list. Sweden is a beautiful country with beautiful foods but some of the things just don’t sit well with me. In any case, every country has its own peculiar flavours… no-one here seems too fond of Marmite for example…

If you’re interested in reading the other side of the coin, check out my list of top 10 best Swedish foods here. Otherwise, without further ado, I present to you my list; read on to see the Top 10 Worst Swedish Foods:

10 – Flygande Jakob (Flying Jacob)

Let’s ease into the list with something that isn’t altogether bad… just extremely weird, especially when you hear about it for the first time. The taste is actually quite ok, but you’d be brave person to try it when you hear the ingredients: Chicken, chilli sauce, peanuts, bacon, and… er… bananas. And no – not plantains. Actual “sweet” bananas.

9 – Ugnspannkaka (Oven Pancake)

Another dish which I have gripes with because it seems like everyone I know loves this stuff. It’s basically pancake batter which is poured into a big pan and baked until done in the oven. Sounds ok, right? Sure, as a dessert… except it’s traditionally eaten as a main course, by itself with butter and jam. My problem with this is that I feel like I need more than just a slab of carbs, fat and sugar for dinner. Bacon is sometimes added, so that’s some protein I suppose…

8 – Palt

Another thing which a lot of people enjoy, these are just dreadful. Again, like the pancake, they’re often eaten as a main course with butter and jam. Palt are meat-filled potato dumplings. They’re dense, they’re sticky, they’re pale and anaemic-looking. Basically, wholly unappetising and I don’t like them one bit. I also tried to make them one day and they disintegrated in the boiling water so I’ve been bitter about them ever since.

7 – Swedish Sausages

Ok, I can’t write off every single Swedish sausage – I’m sure there are some fantastic local variants out there – but I sure as heck can’t find any here. The UK has a real sausage tradition – A good Cumberland sausage with herbs and apple… you can’t get better than that for your breakfast. Coming here, it seems like 99% of all the sausages are basically hotdogs in various sizes. Over-processed, mechanically recovered meat slurry shaped into a sausage and wrapped in plastic, much like this. Now, I enjoy a hotdog as much as the next man but I want a bit of variation every once in a while!

6 – Kalvdans

No, it’s not the quenelle of ice-cream in the foreground there. The kalvdans is that wobbly, mayonaisey-looking stuff in the background. This is actually considered a real delicacy because the milk needed to make it is really hard to get a hold of. The name literally translates to “Calf Dance” and it’s made by heating unpasteurized colostrum milk, the first milk produced by a cow after giving birth. Again, it’s not inherently “bad”, I just find it exceptionally strange. It’s all wobbly and squelchy and like eating a thick milk jelly.

5 – Saltlakrits (Salty Liquorice)

I might be a bit biased here, since I already detest liquorice, but imagine the worst candy in the entire world, and then imagine adding ammonium chloride to them during the manufacturing process. This gives them a revolting, tongue-numbing, overpowering salty flavour. Need I say more? They’re hugely popular here though. I just can’t imagine why…

4 – Fiskbullar (Fish Balls)

I suppose these aren’t dissimilar to the fishballs you can find in many Asian countries, but I didn’t like them there, so I sure as heck aren’t going to like the Swedish variety. Imagine a rubbery white ball, tasting ever so vaguely of fish, smothered in different sauces – lobster, curry, dill – and then canned along with about 30 other of his bally friends. Heat up and eat from a bowl… or don’t.

3 – Lutfisk

Lutfisk, or “Lye Fish” is common on the Swedish Christmas table. I’m very glad I got to try it last Christmas because now I know never to touch it again. It is made from aged stockfish (air-dried whitefish) or dried and salted whitefish and lye. It smells vile and is like putting fish jelly into your mouth.

2 – Smörgåskaviar (Fish roe spread)

This stuff… I hate it with every fibre of my being. Unfortunately my wife loves it, and now so too does my son. Don’t get me wrong… I love fish, but this smells like some kind of fishy nightmare. You only have to open the tube for a few seconds and the smell has permeated every corner of the room. Of course my son gets it all over his hands and then he decides he wants a big fishy hug after dinner. They do have a clever advertising campaign though…

1 – Surströmming

No list would be complete without these bad boys. You may remember this from my post back in February. I don’t even care that it doesn’t actually taste half as bad as it smells. No food should smell putrid and rotting!

So – what do you think? Do you agree? Did I miss anything from the list? Let me know in the comments below!

Comments

Ok, so I’ve tried nothing on this list but the way you’ve described textures and tastes, I now know never to do so.
You are right, food is so subjective and one person’s taste is not like another’s. Which is why restaurant reviews baffle me a bit. My taste is totally different to someone else’s. But reading what you’ve written, seems like we are very similar!!

Number 6 and 10… they’re just weird… when someone offers me kalvdans I’ll never eat it now because I find it so strange… kind of rubbery and thick and wibbly-wobbly, but it’s not unpleasant though I don’t think. True though – we all have different tastes… as can be seen by the number of Swedish people who rushed to tell me how wrong this list is! 😀

You’ve definitely got some winners … err losers there. Most of the fish ones would be automatically purged from my memory in horror as the combination of pickling and preserved fish are anathema to me from childhood when my dad brought home a package of butcher wrapped stinky fish which he’d dig in at the kitchen table. My brother and I would take our food and leave as quickly as possible. I’m sorry that you lost William to the evil fish roe spread addiction. Maybe you can save your next little one. 🙂

The sausages don’t look bad though … kind of like a peeled and sliced Polish sausage. We’d fry them up and serve with fried eggs and crusty bread.

I’ll end by agreeing that liquorice is horrible and I can’t understand why people actually eat that stuff.

Meh, the sausages… don’t get me wrong, they’re perfectly edible, but I just end up thinking “for the love of God, why do all the sausages here have to be processed meat mush”. It gets really annoying after a while. I want something which doesn’t look like mechanically recovered meat garbage.

That’s one heck-of-a-roundup Charles. I have to agree with you on the majority but I’ll confess to a couple of things:
1) anchovy paste, quite handy in making dressings or sauces, would it be similar to the fish tube paste?
2) I make a savoury (sometimes sweet) bread pudding but we usually have it for breakfast or brunch.
I’ll be sure to stay away from your top ten list for sure, thanks for the tips!

2) Bread puddings are nice… it’s been ages since I had one. To be honest, this pancake isn’t terrible… the thing I object to is that it alone, along with butter and jam shouldn’t be a “dinner”. Perhaps a breakfast or snack, but I’m really the kind of person who needs a bit of protein and some nice veg in my evening meal!

You’ll find your pillows on the couch… 😉 The only gross things on your list are lutfisk and surströmming. Everything else is either fine, or plain delicious. Salty licorice, palt, kalvdans… those are the food of gods. Give it a few years and you’ll think so too. Gobble, gobble, my love. Gobble, gobble!

I hate the look of all of these dishes and I don’t know how or why anyone would want to eat them. Sweet pancakes for dinner with bacon thrown in? Those sausages! I agree with you on the cumberland sausage – wonderful. But you have one in this list that is an absolute favourite of mine and that’s the salt licorice! I adore it and can’t get enough of it. It’s not all that common here and you have to have your looking-eyes on to find it and yes, it all comes from Europe; mostly Holland. I used to find a packet of salt licorice at the bottom of my Christmas stocking and knew Father Christmas had to be real because he brought me something from so far away xx

I agree with 8 on those list! Living here now for two years I cannot eat those things either.

But! Flygande Jakob I love it l, it tastes really nice actually if it is proper made. And of course being Dutch myself salty liquorice nom nom nom no better candy then those things especiall turkisk peppar!

But of course, I should have expected you to be a salt licorice lover! Flygande Jakob… yeah, I put it low down on the list because it’s not terrible, but it sure is weird. Telling people outside Sweden you’re having Chicken and bananas for dinner will usually elicit a few raised eyebrows :D.

Fascinating post, Charles! It was an excellent idea to post the weirdest – according to you – Swedish food. Am I the only one intrigued by these dishes rather than disgusted? I want to taste all those I haven’t from this list (that is all apart from salted liquorice and fish roe paste).
I have never tasted the nr one (but I will if I can; I think every food-curious person should live this experience), but for example fish roe paste is one of my favourite food products in the world. Of course home made taramosalata (I posted it once and prepare it often) is much better than the one from the tube, but I have been eating this Swedish brand since I was a small child (like your son I loved it since I can remember). I am not a fan of the dill version though (or any “fancy” versions). I think we are many millions in Europe enjoying fish roe paste.
I suppose US visitors shouldn’t find the pancake weird. I keep on seeing pancakes served with syrup and bacon in many US films, so I suppose it’s not rare there….
In Poland there are also sweet dishes treated as full meals, but it’s not a main course for me either and I don’t like them (apart from one exception I will post one day). If I remember well in Hungary too. (Pasta with fresh cheese and sugar, I think). As for the liquorice, many people love it (in France for example) and I have a friend who is crazy for salted one (it can also be bought here, but imported from Netherlands), so I’m not surprised it’s popular in Sweden.
I haven’t tasted dried stockfish (it’s sold by 2 kg huge fillets here…), but I would like to. I love salted dried cod and I think the strong smell is a part of the flavours, like certain cheese kinds, (though it’s not gelatinous when cooked… it’s just like cod texture, but tastes 100 x better than fresh cod).
I have never been a fan of finely ground sausages: they are a great occasion to put 80% of stuff which shouldn’t be a part of any sausage, so they are often tasteless (here however Wiener sausages are good: smoked with crunchy edible delicious casings…).
The meat dumplings don’t look like Polish ones, but your description does sound like this. Polish ones are also very difficult to make, but they are fabulous, though the filling has herbs and spices while I have heard Swedish food is barely seasoned.
All the people I know who visited Sweden, said the food is underseasoned (well to be frank: bland) or strangely sweetish (which some of the photos above confirm). Is it true? (I don’t mean at your parents-in-law’s house because I suppose they like seasoned food 🙂 ).
Excellent post , Charles! I hope you will post the opposite one day too! Your beloved Swedish dishes/products! (And don’t be politically correct there: tell us the truth!).

Hi Sissi! Thanks for the nice comment – it was fun to read! If you ever have a chance to visit me in Sweden I’ll be sure to throw a special surströmming party just for you. And by that I mean you can sit in the garden by yourself with the can of stinky fish while I take shelter inside :D.

I absolutely LOVE taramosalata… but would you consider it the same thing as this tube garbage? The stuff in the tubes I just abhor. It’s so fishy and almost intoxicating… bleurgh. Makes me feel sick even thinking about it.

I never met a single person in France who loved salty licorice – I’m really surprised to hear you say it. It was a favourite trick of Swedish people in my office to bring back this “saltlakrits” from vacation and feed it to French people in the office to see their reaction, haha.

Stockfish isn’t terrible, but it’s the lye that really ruins it. I can’t understand why anyone would want to eat it… this strange, almost tasteless jelly-like white fish. So odd.

I can definitely agree that spices aren’t that common… as a result people generally have a low tolerance for heat. I remember being at a friend’s house for dinner with my wife. There was another friend of my wife’s there and there was a jar of homemade chilli jam on the table, made with a really hot chilli. I tried a bit and it was strong, for sure, but very good. Beautiful, complex flavours. The other friend tried it… and, well, it didn’t end well!

Charles, I said “liquorice”; not “salty liquirice”. The friend I mentioned is the only one I know who likes salted one (that’s why I have mentioned her), while standard liquorice is quite popular. It can be find at the supermarkets’ cashier, so it’s the proof it’s not a rare buy.
Taramosalata… I think that the Swedish industrial cousin of taramosalata is much better than for example the stuff sold in France as taramosalata (which is bland and oily… while the Swedish thing has a lot of taste at least!). For me taramosalata must be strong-tasting and fishy (this is what lacks in the French one, as often made tasteless for French tastebuds not used to certain tastes). Of course nothing beats the home-made one!

Ah, of course – yes, you’re right… regular licorice is very common in France… I did indeed think it was strange if you were saying that French people were big fans of the salty stuff!

I must admit – the stuff sold in France as taramosalata (it’s sold as “tarama”, right? I think it’s the same thing…) I am very fond of. I love it because it’s just the right amount of “fishiness”, without being terrible like the Swedish kaviar junk.

I’ve been considering making it, but if it’s going to end up being super-fishy like kaviar perhaps I’ll give it a miss.

Oops, I forgot to say: don’t worry about typos! In fact I experimented with a plugin which allowed people to edit their comments for 5 minutes after submitting, but because I have quite a bit going on to try and make my site as speedy as possible it wasn’t 100% compatible sadly and would have needed no small amount of work to make it function well.

Oh, so if you like the French delicate thing, I see now why you don’t like the “Swedish blue tube with a boy” as I call it 😉 I think you would hate my taramosalata, even though homemade because it’s very strong compared to the French tarama (though of course it’s less salty and more natural than commercial ones). I absolutely must have the strong fishy taste in it!
I like fish roe in general, but I prefer good foie gras rather than caviar if I had to order somewhere 😉 .
Thank you for the kind words about my errors (the good side is I have checked my words and learnt that liquorice is also an accepted spelling in English! which doesn’t change the fact that I have left other typos, of course ).

“You’ll find your pillows on the couch”… heeheeh, yes indeed, I was especially interested in hearing the other voice in the family on this one :). It would be utterly unfair of me to opine on this selection, I am truly not a natural fish person 😉 but that has nothing to do with the quality of the food or the Swedish preparation, just my peculiarities. I would totally dig that salted liquorice though!!! 🙂 Fun post Charles.

I love fish, really I do. I find it so interesting how fish is viewed across different cultures. For example, salmon here is really not considered as something that special. In fact, my wife’s grandfather hated it. He always said it was complete garbage… basically the kind of thing you eat if you’re poor and there’s nothing else in the whole house, whereas in England – at least until 10 or 20 years ago – it was really considered quite a luxury.

Charles, we are in complete agreement. I would not remove a single thing from your list. Have you ever heard of an American television show, animated, called King of the Hill? There is an hilarious episode when the new minister in town is of Norwegian background and brings lutfisk to the church picnic and Bobby Hill eats the whole thing. You should definitely see it!

Hi Jean, I’ve heard of the show – never seen much of it though, and definitely not that episode. How fun – would love to check it out. I looked on Netflix but they don’t seem to have it (at least not on Swedish Netflix).

This post had me laughing so hard Charles! I loved it. Mike actually came into my office curious what I was laughing about. I have to say I’m in agreement with you from afar (haven’t not seen or tried any of these dishes). The first one, with the bananas, is curious to me though. I have to admit I might try that one. I do love bananas. The flavor combo sounds odd and one I’m not sure I’d like, but it’s one I’d try. Saltlakrits and fish roe spread, however, there’s no way I could try those. I can’t stand licorice either and anything with a strong fish smell sends me running. Don’t get me wrong, I love seafood, but I have a strong sense of smell and things with intense odor (particularly unpleasant odors) don’t sit so well with me. I can just imagine the sticky fishy hug though. LOL. As for marmite…well, I tried it recently. I can’t say I hated it, nor can I say I liked it. It was interesting. The kids on the other hand…they thought it was horrible. Poor Mr. N had no idea what he was trying. Miss A tricked him into thinking it was something sweet. The reaction was priceless.

What – the Swedes don’t like Marmite but like Salty Liquorice???? No way!!!!
And looks like weirdly preserved fish is a big item there – I haven’t tried any of these 10 items – and couldn’t say I have an opinion till I taste them – with the exception of that salty liquorice – that’s just ghastly sounding!!

This is SO funny Charlies. If I didn’t know you were serious, I would look at this food and think someone made it for the sole purpose of being bad and ugly. So is butter and jam the solution to make anything taste better? 🙂

Ha, well, not sure about the butter, but to be honest I should think the jam is probably a throwback to the old days when fresh fruit and veg wasn’t available here in the long winter months. People would pick berries – notably lingonberries – in the autumn, and they have so much pectin in they can be preserved by literally just leaving them in a bucket of water. They’d make jam out of them and eat it with their meal (of potatoes and meat) and I suppose it was a way of getting some vitamins in the snowy nights 🙂

You really need to taste a good sausage. If you visit again I can point you to to a bunch of places that sell the real thing.

But yes, food is subjective, and I don’t really do these kinds of lists myself. The only thing I just totally won’t eat is anything involving offal. On occassion, I have black pudding. I don’t eat Kalles kaviar, nor am I in for kalvdans, surströmming or svartsoppa. Ugnspannkaka was a frequent food in the school cafeteria growing up, which pretty much messed up whatever delight the dish may hold.

I know people that will kill for good salty licorice, although I will only eat finnish sweet licorice at times.

Hi Jessica, actually I do live here now – up near Skellefteå so by all means, please do let me know the locations of “good sausage” vendors. You’d make my day if I could find a nice one, although I’m starting to suspect I may need to resort to making my own… not that that is a bad thing. I never tried making sausages before and must admit to being quite excited by the prospect of trying it.

I had some Swedish black pudding just a few days ago and was very disappointed. I was expecting it to be like the English version which has oats and a much stronger flavour – more spices. The pudding I tried tasted very plain and flat… are they all like that?

I live in Mälardalen so I’m at a loss for where to find good sausage up north. I know of a few places around here but it’s small-scale production and all is sold locally.

Since I rarely eat black pudding, I buy from a butcher when I do. It should be savoury yet somewhat sweet. I prefer if they haven’t dropped a tub of allspice into the mix, but that seems to vary rather significantly.

I love “real” caviar, and “pure” fish roe in most forms, but this is smushed up with something creamy, like mayonnaise, maybe some breadcrumbs too. It smells REALLY fishy and is not good at all. It’s kind of like fish paste.

As for the surströmming… no, we have pickled herring here, that’s called “inlagd sill”. “Sur” literally means sour, and it’s basically fermented herring. The cans have so much gas inside that they bulge out on all sides and make a loud hiss when you open them. The smell can only really be compared to a pile of old fish bits which has been thrown in the garbage and left out in the sun for 2 weeks. It’s a terrible smell of fishy garbage and decomposition and I don’t understand at all why anyone would subject themselves to this 😀 (pickled herring however… is indeed delicious!)

I am going to Swedish trip tomorrow. Your list is very useful, thanks.
Interesting fact is that from my point of view your description of Swedish sausages perfectly fit to British sausages 🙂 You should try some Polish sausages to feel what I mean 😉

Enjoy your trip to the beautiful country of Sweden! I hope you’ll have a chance to see some countryside and not just city (although of course, places like Stockholm can be beautiful too!).

I guess it’s what you’re used to… it’s true, english sausages are quite “smooth”… german, french, (I guess Polish) sausages are often quite coarse, but I think the thing is, with english sausages you mostly have the idea that you’re eating meat… ground meat.

With many Swedish sausages it seems like it’s really processed (like, you can see tiny air bubbles in the meat from where it’s been moussed up and processed which you don’t get to much in british sausages!) 🙂

The Norwegian or Scandinavian idea of big gourmet feast is an open sandwich on rock hard and dry brown bread ! The food is bland and very simple. They put some pickled herring, a brown cheese from Norway that looks like bar of soap-and tastes worse ,local caviar (usually salmon roe),some fatty and grey salami slices, smoked salmon-slices(lox), baby pickles, some sliced red onions and a hideous white sauce made of sour cream and horseradish smeared on the whole mess….YULK ! Also, their sausages (pictured above) are nothing more than a fat hot dog; mushy, salty and horrid ! The best food of the Scandinavian countries is probably Danish, because Denmark is attached to mainland Europe and had access to Belgian and Dutch influences and ingredients. The worst is Finland to the East, but Finland is not technically part of Scandinavia. Norway and Sweden are about equal and both are pretty bad food wise. They need to get some chefs from Italy and France to teach them how to cook….and I heard they are doing just that !

Ahaha, your comment made me laugh! I wouldn’t say it’s that bad – and they have some things which are just delicious (although some things might not immediately seem delicious until you’re used to them). I think the problem is that “husmanskost” is quite popular… food consisting of simple flavours, potatoes and some kind of meat, things like this, and it’s just unimaginative and boring to anyone who has been raised on things which are rich in flavour. It is comforting sometimes, this food, but not something I’d want all the time. A lot of the things considered delicacies are kind of “purist”… like, things don’t need to be dressed up and masked with piles of herbs and fancy stuff… there’s nothing wrong with appreciating the flavour of the raw ingredient, but again, I like herbs and fancy stuff, so sometimes I want that!

I agree on the sausages though! Doesn’t matter what kind of shape or size you buy, it’s just a meat slurry steamed into a casing. I don’t mind the occasional hotdog but I like texture and flavour too… there’s a Swedish sausage called “Isterband” – it’s pretty good… very salty, but it has oatmeal so it’s very textured!

It’s not that Swedish sausages necessarily are overly processed. It’s that the meat, fillings, etc. in the sausage are ground to a farce. This means that the meat fibres are mushed up, and lets the spices, etc. be distributed evenly in the sausage.

There is a local sausage-maker that makes Chorizo in this fashion and it’s delicious.

Your problem is that you think that the British way of doing it is the “proper” way, and then discount the other ways of doing it as improper cost-saving ways of doing them.

I’ve had some British sausages in my time that were horrible. But I assume that was because *those* sausages were cheap crap. I do not assume that all British sausages are crap, even if they can’t even be bothered to grind the filling to a farce… 😉

It’s not that I consider the British way the best way – I’ve had some terrible British sausages too, but I want a sausage to have a texture… Not to just dissolve into a mush when biting into it. Swedish sausages seem to go to two extremes… Either very coarse like isterband, or just the paste variety, which is most predominant alas. Variety in everything is nice – I tire quickly of meat slurry in casing for every sausage-based meal…:(

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